| Jesus and the End-Time The Kingdom and the End-Time The Delay of the Kingdom |
As they heard these things, he proceeded to tell them a parable, because he was near to Jerusalem, and because they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately. He said therefore, "A nobleman went into a far country to receive kingly power and then return. Calling ten of his servants, he gave them ten pounds, and said to them 'Trade with these till I come.' But his citizens hated him and sent an embassy after him, saying, 'We do not want this man to reign over us.' When he returned, having received the kingly power he commanded these servants, to whom he had given the money, to be called to him, that he might know what they had gained by trading. The first came before him, saying, 'Lord, your pound has made ten pounds more.' And he said to him, 'Well done, good servant! Because you have been faithful in a very little, you shall have authority over ten cities.' And the second came, saying, 'Lord, your pound has made five pounds.' And he said to him, 'And you are to be over five cities.' Then another came, saying, "Lord, here is your pound, which I kept laid away in a napkin; for I was afraid of you, because you are a severe man; you take up what you did not lay down, and reap what you did not sow.' He said to him, 'I will condemn you out of your own mouth, you wicked servant! You knew that I was a severe man, taking up what I did not lay down, and reaping what I did not sow? Why then did you not put my money into the bank, and at my coming I should have collected it with interest? And he said to those who stood by, 'Take the pound from him, and give it to him who has the ten pounds. (And they said to him, 'Lord, he has ten pounds!) I tell you, that everyone who has will more be given; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away. But as for these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slay them before me.'" Luke 19:11-27So far in this chapter I have said some rather grand things about the presence of the Kingdom in the world today and about the winning of the kingdom by Jesus on the cross, but we still face a world that does not appear to be the Kingdom of God at all. In appearance the world is the same unhappy place, no matter what we claim about the Kingdom. What business have we, in light of the world's anguish, to speak of the Kingdom of God as a present reality? In ordinary life we make a useful distinction between appearance and reality. An illusionist does not really pull an egg out of his stooge's ear; he only appears to do so. This distinction is not limited to a magician's platform. The computer age has forced it upon everyday experience. In a jet airliner the passenger deals mainly with appearances. Superficially, his environment is not much different from that of an interstate bus. He perceives his seat, the proximity of his seatmate, the distance to the restroom, the slow progress of the craft in relation to the landmarks miles below. Only in his perception of speed is he dealing with an appearance different from that of a bus passenger; though he knows better, the airplane seems to be going slower than a bus. The reality of a jet plane in flight-the computerized instruments, the ground crews, the mechanism of the enormous engines to power it-are all invisible to him. In the absence of a landscape rushing past the window he has no sense of what it means to be traveling at almost ten miles a minute. Only when he reaches his destination in a fraction of the time it would have taken him by surface travel does he get some real indication of the speed at which he traveled. Modern life abounds with illustrations like this one, demonstrating the obvious: reality never depends on appearances. Jesus was relying on this self-evident truth when he said that the Kingdom of heaven was as much like a mustard seed as it was like the tree that grew from it (Matthew 13:31, 32). If we accept the distinction between appearance and reality, we can accept the reality of the Kingdom today while acknowledging that its appearance has been delayed. The Kingdom is real, but what makes it real is not apparent; it does its work without outward manifestation, without the trappings of kingship. It will not always be so. The day is coming when the King will be revealed in all his splendor, his Kingdom will make its appearance, and appearance and reality will converge. But that time is not yet. If you have difficulty understanding the distinction between appearance and reality, you are in the same boat as the disciples. They kept pushing Jesus to "reveal" himself, that is, to make him known as the Messiah. They believed deeply, in spite of his repeated warnings to the contrary, that when they arrived in Jerusalem he would reveal himself and the splendor of his kingliness would appear to all.1 In Jerusalem, they believed, there would be a throne to express the outward appearance of the Kingdom; instead, there was a cross to demonstrate its inward reality. The disciples were wrong, not because there would never be a throne, but because there was not to be a throne right away. Jesus told the parable of the nobleman to them so that they would understand this. "As they heard these things, he proceeded to tell a parable, because he was near to Jerusalem, and because they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately." One cannot blame the disciples much for their confusion; Jesus had already said that the Kingdom of God was in their midst (Luke 17:21). If the Kingdom was in their midst, why shouldn't it appear? The Kingdom surely does not come in its fullness until appearance matches reality. That is a reasonable conclusion and a reasonable question. Indeed, the parable does not provide a very satisfactory answer to it. It deals less with why the appearance of the Kingdom is delayed than with the effect of the delay on those who are left behind during the absence of the king. The nobleman "goes into a far country" to be crowned king. That would take a long time in those days, when horses and sailing ships were the swiftest means of travel. But it doesn't take the risen Christ any "time," as we measure it to travel from earth to heaven and back again. If travel time is no answer, then we don't know the reason for the delay-at least, not from this story. We only learn that in the interval the absent king receives "kingly power"; the rest is left to the counsel of God. The effect on those left behind is another matter. There are two groups of them: the servants in the king's household and the citizens in his kingdom. The servants are given a task to perform for the king, while the citizens want to reject his kingship entirely. Since Jesus said specifically that the story is about the delay of the appearance of the Kingdom of God, it is legitimate to interpret the story accordingly. The absent king (in his action though not in his character) represents Christ, who will go away and come again; the servants of the king's household represent the disciples of Christ who are left behind and belong to him-that is, the Church; the citizens who reject him are all those who reject Christ in the world at large, whether Jew or Gentile. Before he goes away the king gives his servants money and a command: "Trade with these till I come." The delay of the Kingdom's appearance is the Church's opportunity, created by the gift of her Lord. The servants trade with the king's money, not with their own. The king does not tell the servants, "Look, friends. I am going to be gone for quite a while. You can take a long vacation and go about your own business." Instead he gives them what is necessary to carry on his business. The implications for the Church are direct and inescapable. What we are and what we have is Christ's, and it is to be used with him in mind. We are to work for him, not until "we have done enough," not until we are tired of doing it, not until someone makes us angry and we quit, not until we are personally satisfied with our work, but until he comes. Stewardship of what we are and have is the specific responsibility of the Church in the end-time. Christ has made all of us who claim to be his servants the trustees of his work and world. And because the work is the King's work, it is the work of the Kingdom-the Kingdom in its reality, though not in its appearance. The command to do his business goes to the servants, not to the citizens. The citizens are neither prepared for the work nor inclined to do it. How could they be, and why should they be? It is tempting for the Church to criticize the world for its irresponsibility, but the Church should have no such expectation of the world. Responsibility belongs to the Church, not to people in general. As it turns out in the story, not even all the servants are inclined to do the work; at least one of them takes what he has been given to work with and hides it away. Some Christians see the work as a burden, as the timid servant did. He felt put upon. "Lord, here is your pound, which I kept laid away in a napkin; for I was afraid of you, because you are a severe man; you take up what you did not lay down, and reap what you did not sow." But others see the work as an opportunity and privilege, much like the fourth-string quarterback who is called into the game in the closing minutes to show what he can do. Maybe the game was won in the first half and his team now leads by five touchdowns, but he still wants to play; that is why he suited up and waited on the bench in the first place. This is our only chance also. The Church is the people of the end-time. Each of us is living out his life in the interval between the appearances of Christ on earth-the first time at Bethlehem and Calvary, the second time in the clouds of glory. No other command applies to us more fully than this one to be about his business until he comes. If we aren't doing our chores now, they won't get done. One of my favorite lines in all literature is in a comedy about a Russian grand duchess who is reduced by the Russian Revolution to working as a maid in a Paris household. Throughout the play she keeps her faith and her humor. She speaks the last line of the last scene as she picks up two milk bottles and says, "If I don't leave these for the milkman, the Russian God won't do it for me."2 Whatever milk bottles you and I are responsible for, whatever resources God has given us to use and whatever work he has given us to do, he is not going to do it for us. The effect of the delay on the citizens is only implied in the story. They are given time to reconsider their rejection of the king and perhaps accept him. The citizens did not spend their time in that way. But they could have. In that light, every day of the delay is a day of grace; it postpones the moment when "some shall be taken and others left behind." The citizens of the world already have the basis on which to choose the Kingdom, for all men are drawn to the cross for their decision. There the reality of the Kingdom is revealed; there men can recognize the splendor of the love of God for them and can use the delay of the Kingdom's appearance as their opportunity for glory. But after the Kingdom appears in the return of the King, it is too late to choose. The citizens of the world must then accept the consequences of the choice they have already made in their rejection of the king. The king in the story I not Jesus, but his action is like that of Jesus. So however bloodthirsty the conclusion of the story might seem-in keeping with the character of the king in the story-it has a point. T.W. Manson said in reference to it: We may be horrified by the fierceness of the conclusion; but beneath the grim imagery is an equally grim fact, the fact that the coming of Jesus to the world puts every man to the test, compels every man to a decision. And that decision is no light matter. It is a matter of life and death.3The appearance of the Kingdom and the return of Christ are synonyms for the close of the age, the moment when appearance and reality will converge. We look forward to that time, grateful for its coming, yet grateful also for these days of grace-for our many opportunities to serve the King and for all those countless souls who may decide that they want Jesus to be their King after all. 1 See Broadman Bible Commentary, Volume 9, Broadman Press, 1970, p.148. 2 Jacques Deval, Torarich, Act II, Scene 2, in Sixteen Famous European Plays, Modern Library, 1943. 3 Quoted in Leon Morris, The Gospel According to St. Luke, Eerdman's, 1974, p. 276. » Next Page — The Fulfillment of the Kingdom » Table of Contents » Home |